There are many reasons why users may want to locate sensors around a building, for example, to control the temperature or lighting of one or more rooms. In some examples, the control may be implemented within a room, e.g. a motion sensor in a room linked to the lights within the same room. In other examples there may be a number of sensors placed around the building and monitoring one or more parameters where the sensor data is transmitted to a central controller and can be used for central control of devices e.g. for security or fire alarm systems.
Where multiple sensors are used around a building, the controller requires significant amounts of information about the location and orientation of the sensors, the building floor plan, etc in order to accurately function. Entry of this data is time consuming and prone to human error and will become out of date if sensors are moved or new sensors added.
The embodiments described below are not limited to implementations which solve any or all of the disadvantages of known distributed sensor networks.